1. Unused RAM is wasted RAM. 2. Sometimes high CPU usage is a good thing. 3. Inodes need to be tracked, as well as available space. df -i command is importatnt. 4. Large number of distros is good thing, a superpower. It allows you to change up the user interface. 5. Use LVM (logical volume manager) to get more control over your storage, treating multiple things as one. You can resize file systems online. 6. You don't have to memorize Linux commands. Memorize everyday ones; it's okay to look up lesser-used ones. 7. Always have a backup distro. 8. GIT version control is not just for software developers but also for system administration. 9. LVM has a snapshot feature, useful for trying new things. 10. Especially for cloud servers, take all individual volumes when backing up data.
Point 1 applies only if you have high enough ram to begin with. You'd need a decently high amount of ram if your workflow involves sometimes using lightweight apps and occasionally running multiple heavy programs at the same time. No unused memory is really wasted. You're just being prepared for when you do need it.
For years i was obsessing about have "free memory". And getting mad, that my operating system, "ate" all my memory. Untill someone, asked me why i wanted a slow inefficient computer.
The only real thing that needs to have a free excess is hard disk space. Everything else only needs to have a buffer of free. Its not about how much you have free, its about how fast that ram can do its job. That's all.
Around 2002, when I was fed up with the repeated crashes of my system, I went to ask three questions on the usenet forum: - "As a non-IT person, do you think I can install and configure a GNU/Linux system? - Am I obliged to know by heart a myriad of magic formulas? - Will these orders still be valid in a few years? The old wolves reassured me, and told me that if I got into the habit of reading the manuals and getting information before doing any manipulations, things would fall into place quite naturally. Moreover, the commands that I will have to use will be the same in ten years. They were right, and I just jotted down some "cooking recipes". 8-)
In my experience, most GNU utilities tend to keep the options the same over the course of time, just adding new ones. But, if you jump over to BSD the utilities may have the same name, but different options, and sometimes the GNU has things BSD doesn't. I encountered such issues with the "whois" commands, so I had to tweak how I automated checking for expiration dates and name servers when jumping between the two.
Fast forward ten years and you have systemd with totally new commands and concepts, plus a lot of other replacements (ip address show instead of ifconfig for example).
@@illegalsmirf very true, I didn't say that we don't get new software. Like getting a list of open sockets, we now have ss -tpln to see what daemons are listening on which TCP ports. I have also moved from ipchains, to iptables years ago, and I think that we have moved on from there. But I don't manage several firewalls for ISPs anymore, so a bit out of the loop there.
Thanks for being transparent about not having to memorize commands. You just lifted a huge load off of me brother. I have definitely built my own cheat sheet. Which is very helpful. As always, I love your content. Keep up the good work.
The real skill you need is to be able to refresh your memory quickly. So you can look up what you need and understand what you are reading. Only the real world tests this - it applies to every aspect of computing and most other things as well.
I now remember cut because I've used it a few times in BASH scripts, but I don't really remember awk and sed, so I just consult some scripts I've used them in. I throw those scripts up on github and consult them when I need to remember what I did before. Also tab is a real blessing trying to remember or discover commands.
After you’ve used certain commands and options a few dozen or hundred times, you do automatically memorize them. For the rest, there’s man (among other sources). This is why I’ve started writing man pages for some of my own programs. Nitpick: grammatically, it should be “I wish I had known”, not “I wish I knew”.
The biggest handicap I experienced with Linux, which is what I have used for years as my primary OS, was a an absence of well documented applications. That has greatly eased over the last 20 years or so, and generally anything you can do using a Windows (or Mac?) system can be done on a Linux system.
More or less, yes. There's always the learning curve, though depending on the person. A lot of people can pickup Linux pretty quick and others will struggle a lot.
Most things, yes. The difference is more often “how easily” or “how quickly”, rather than “at all”. Frex, I just found out that there’s something very much like Time Machine for Linux that’s been around for a while, but it’s nowhere near as easy to set up or use. And sometimes the deficit in UX is a dealbreaker-for some software, the UX is as much or more important than the functionality. For me, the main software I’m not willing to give up in order to use Linux is Scrivener. Several open-source and commercial imitators now exist for macOS, MSWindows, and Linux , and some people find some of them just as good as Scrivener. I don’t. There’s other software that I’d have trouble replacing (BBEdit, InDesign, 1Password, Things, frex), but I either already know of Linux alternatives that are “good enough”, or they’re more “what I’m used to” than “what I love”, so I’m sure I could adapt to new software and new workflows.
not really true. audio production does not have a workflow on linux that isn't a huge pain in the ass. and most plugins are not supported. its unfortunately the reason why i can never use it as daily driver. also, no photoshop isnt quite a deal breaker but its close. there are plenty of examples of this where you can technically do the same thing but you are forced to using a greatly inferior (much of the time) app to do the job. the fact is that even here in 2024, no one uses linux as their daily driver because its good but because they just hate windows and apple too much to stomach using them anymore.
@@vivsavagex There is an immense difference between can't be done, and "I don't like the work," which is your position. Many computer users confuse having to learn an interface with "difficulty." There are many entries these days on audio production on Linux. Many even recommend Linux as a platform. That said, the first time I ever met someone who did his own processing, he was a black jazz musician who used Linux. I still have a CD of his.
To explain the multitude of distros, I like to use a car analogy. There is one brand of engine, Linux, and a bunch of related models (aka versions). Then there are a couple of popular brands of chassis (Debian and Redhat) and a few other less common ones (Arch, Suse). On these chassis, companies then add the controls (gear stick, steering wheel, pedals) and interface, generally using off-the-shelf families of controls (KDE, Gnome, XFCE), and then add the body and styling and such. So all the cars have the same engine, and there is a small number of choices of chassis, and then each distro adds its own customisations on top of that engine and chassis. Ultimately, like driving a car, once you are comfortable with changing gear and steering, you can easily move from one car to another and only have to re-learn stuff like how to use the radio. Some cars will go fast; some will let you carry more cargo; there are vans and go-carts, and such. By comparison, Apple is like a Rolls Royce that makes three brands of cars, using entirely in-house engines, chassis, and so on, and with a policy that if the electric windows stop working, the solution is to buy a whole new car.
I've heard OSs compared to cars and the makers compared to dealerships before... the analogy I heard involves a busy street intersection. At the corners, there are two dealerships, and also a large paved lot full of various groups of people in tents and makeshift sheds working on tanks. One of the dealerships sells sleek, modern, sports cars. They're difficult to maintain and almost impossible to fix yourself, and overpriced... but they look fancy and slick, and owning one is a status symbol. If it breaks you can bring it to the dealership for servicing, but most likely they'll tell you to buy a new one, or a repair will cost more than a replacement. The other dealership sells family sedans. They're cheaper, but also less slick and stylish. They're technically easier to service and somewhat less tightly integrated and hermetically sealed up, but nobody who buys one tries to service it, beyond maybe a new paint job or an aftermarket horn. They break down, you take it to the dealership and pay the dealership to fix it. The guys across the street, are teams of volunteers. They make tanks. The tanks are sometimes uglier than a standard car, and can be far more confusing if you pop the hood, and the controls aren't always as simple as the dealership sedans or slick sports cars. But they're insanely safe, extremely smooth and fast on the road, and if you know what you're doing, far more accessible to tinker with. They come with extensive manuals and documentation. And the volunteers will literally give them away to you for free. If something breaks - they will give you the manual and tools to fix it if you broke it, or come and repair it for you if they broke it. These people do this because they wanted the tanks, and believe that something of this nature should be made available to anyone who wants to use it, for free and with the blueprints available openly for anyone to build their own or modify the blueprints. Multiple times a day, someone will come to this street corner with a broken or out of date sports car or sedan, or looking to buy their first car. The volunteers will tell them all about the tanks, and try to get them to take one. They'll protest they don't know how to maintain a tank. When told they don't know how to maintain a sedan or a sports car either, they'll say "But I can bring it to the dealership and pay them to fix it when it breaks." The tank people explain that they will fix it when it's their fault, will never charge you again for the newest model, and if you break it they will give you the tools and documentation to fix it, for free. The car shopper will still go into one of the dealerships and buy their overpriced product, because the tanks sound overwhelming. (On the other side of the spectrum, nowadays, a parent will pull up to the tank people in their well maintained tank, their young child in tow, seeking to pick out a good tank for their child to learn to drive in.) Once or twice every so often, someone who didn't come looking for the tanks will actually take a tank. Most of them return it in frustration and buy an overpriced new sedan.
For anyone wondering where the previous analogy came from, it's from "In the Beginning... Was the Command Line", an essay by the fiction author Neal Stephenson.
And when you go from a car that just works and us uniform to a tank and you want to set the chair and inside mirrors, suddenly something breaks and when you bring that up the volunteers say "well mine never did that, it must be a rare issue" and you have to learn everything to find out what the problem is and then the seat is too small but you are caugh by choice paralysis and just go back to the sedan bc it's easy, it works and it doesn't expect you to learn a lot about a topic that doesn't interest you BC you don't care about cars or tanks, you use them as a tool, not a character trait so having em just work is something you just want
1:47 The key thing to identify this situation (in the “top” display, or output from the “free” command) is to look at “available” RAM, not “free” RAM. The former includes cache usage, the latter doesn’t. So don’t worry if the latter is small, so long as the former still shows some useful amount.
Yeah, gonna be directing my students to you. Your calm explanations are sound. Heck, I learn things and I've been around the block a few times. Thanks for putting these out.
This video made me feel much better in regard to memorizing all the commands. I took the Red Hat course through my school and was overwhelmed with all the commands. Thanks.
Yeah, that is something that took me a while to get comfortable with as well. I learned very early on to be very specific in my comments in my code, etc. because, next week, next month, or next year, I might need to do that same exact thing, but I will not remember it. If I wanted to memorize stuff, I guess, I could have been a Lawyer. LOL!
As I love it, to add the costs of the items in my cart, having the exact amount in my hand, when approaching cashier, see his smile cause it went so quickly, so I like to write cmd because stuff is quickly done. To memorize ~30cmds should be no problem for average pple.
@@DrKellieOwczarczak This is exactly me as software engineer. I always add comments and detailed docs to my projects (especially APIs). I do other stuff like flowcharts, system schemas etc. I always write test for my code and have backups for all of these. I even created myself a tool (as a project) that keeps details with tags, topics and description, which I can pull if needed. Also in most cases I prefer code readability than length or syntax, and that helps a lot. In that way I am not stressed and worried about my work.
8:28 The point about using a different distro if you don't like the user interface - I would take this one step further and point out that for the most part you can install pretty much any desktop environment or window manager on any distribution. You don't have to even switch distros. Ubuntu is famous for it's unique spin on Gnome, but you can easily rip that out and replace it with anything you want. Or, you can install several desktop environments and switch between them as your mood dictates without any real issues.
I was just thinking about this the other night, while trying to sum up why I like Linux to a friend. The extensibility is actually insane when you think about it too much. You can do everything up to and including compiling a custom kernel. Literally every aspect of the way your machine behaves, looks, acts, and reacts is up for modification. But even before that you have desktop environment/window manager choice and extensibility, and before that you have the, by Windows standards, already insane levels of customisation that the vanilla install of something like plasma or gnome offer. People in Linuxland get mad about sysD, people in windowsLand get served ads on their desktop and have to just like it.
I ran into the inode issue a very long time ago, also on a mail server, however, it wasn't the messages themselves, it was a file system based grey listing solution I was using to help with spam. The answer then was to dedicate another drive to that solution, but to make the clusters very small, so very many inodes. As to LLVM, I avoided it on physical servers, because of the physical backup and recovery of a failing drive was much harder with LLVM in the mix. I see it as a great plus in a virtual server system.
When it comes to using Linux commands, I think it’s worthwhile to try to remember the general syntax of commands you use frequently, but don’t worry about remembering all the options / flags / arguments/ etc. So long as you have the name of the command, most commands are a simple “command -h” or “command -help” away from getting a list of available options and ways to use it. Yes you can do “man command”, but manual pages are confusing and terrible! 😀 They’re either way to brief with no additional info or WAY too long and convoluted, so at least see if the command has a -h or -help flag first.
@@brettsjoholm yep. Sometimes -h or -help doesn’t do much better, but often it will give a nicely condensed blurb of the command syntax and what each of the possible flags / arguments do.
I think it's such an important point that even the most experienced people do not memorise everything, and thank you for saying it because I think it's often a scary thing for us newer and less experienced people often worry about. It's something I learnt with Photography that even the best photogs do not turn up take one shot and it's perfect. they take thousands of pictures to find their best shot to show the world. I've been watching lots of the "into the terminal" series form Red Hat recently and it's so great seeing one of their most experience people there even makes mistakes and forgets things. It's just down to what you use on a daily basis is different from the next person. I'd love to learn more about your career, how you transitioned and what you do now. I think it would also be really great to learn what you use for your note taking. Obsidian is such a widely discussed tool these days. I've taken a look at Logseq which looks really interesting but I cannot wrap my head around how to use it effectively and always find myself comparing it to Obsidian which I probably shouldn't. Do you host things like your notes or do you keep them local on your computer?
4:56 It would be easier just to say that inodes limit the maximum _number_ of files you can create on the volume, regardless of the space they occupy. So if you run out of inodes, you cannot create any new files (or directories), you can only extend existing ones.
@@CTimmerman Depends on the config, you can specify a number of inodes per X MB's .... but using XFS they are created dynamically, so you never run out.
Hell yes. This was a great video. I wish you'd cover a lot of things you didn't know at the first. Maybe, organize them according to complexity (or career-period) versus just random topics.
2:27 Yes, it most certainly is true. Remember, userland apps like GNOME are not responsible for managing filesystem cache--that is done by the kernel. So any RAM the apps are using is actual regular application RAM, and if they are using a lot more than other comparable apps, then yes, that counts as “bloat”.
Great video, Jay. I'm always learning things from you. It seems that you have an endless supply of Linux knowledge to share. That's OK, though; 'cause I have a pretty healthy appetite for learning those kinds of things. Thanks for all of your videos and books. They've been a great help to me. From the Linux Mint Essentials book that got me started with Linux (back in the day); to the Mastering Ubuntu Server books of recent times... What a long "road" we've traveled since the CP/M days. ...and you've helped to make the trip a great experience for me. Thanks bunches, Jay.
The main disadvantage of having 100s of distros is that it makes extremely difficult for a 3rd party vendor to supply support for their products. Imagine having to teach your support team Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse, Arch and then all it's dozens of variants. It's insane. The one thing google has done with linux is take it out of open source and streamline it into ONE OS period.
I agree with you, Jay, regarding the certification process. It seems that the primary focus of these certifications is more about generating revenue rather than genuinely ensuring quality or skill. Many organizations appear to leverage these certifications as a way to monetize professional development, rather than offering a truly valuable and rigorous credential. This commercial approach can undermine the credibility of the certification and the true expertise it is supposed to represent. It's important for us to be discerning about which certifications we pursue, considering not just the cost but also the tangible benefits and recognition they provide in our field.
Point 1 applies only if you have high enough ram to begin with. You'd need a decently high amount of ram if your workflow involves sometimes using lightweight apps and occasionally running multiple heavy programs at the same time. No unused memory is really wasted. You're just being prepared for when you do need it
I think it depends on the intended use case. If you're running a database, it's a good idea since as the index grows it just occupies more RAM. If it's something that has more sporadic usage, maybe just let it use some of the swap space when it spikes.
I had what I called the big 2 when I started in 2004 - Ubuntu, Fedora and Opensuse. These were what I used either as a primary driver or my backup. Lately I now use Linux Mint. I've learned to use a Home partition to make this easier.
Number 7: It seems, due to the path Ubuntu is going, Vanilla OS and Pop OS will derivate themselves directly from Debian, no more from Ubuntu. Things are changing.
High CPU usage might not be an issue on a server, but if your desktop is idling at, say 80%, you don't really have much overhead for other applications
For point 7: I don't really care about the distribution, I care about the DE. I'm a desktop user, not a server admin, so the look is more important to me than the underlying stuff. But the point still stands: if KDE goes away, I'll have to have a hard look at which DEs provide the most Windows-like environment.
I personally like GNOME because I was using Windows since 2001 and i'm just bored of seeing a bar with a menu so the way of Gnome to show apps and all always makes me to use it. But I don't like some ideas of GNOME and lack of customization even there's extensions that can break the system in every update... I'm using Debian rn
I've been using S.u.S.E. Linux since 1994. One thing I never understood is why you would want to install a new distribution just because you don't like the GUI. Not a fan of gnome? just install KDE. Problem solved. Well, if your distribution doesn't make it easy to install another GUI, then yeah, change the distro.
Yes, that's info that I can definitely use. Now I will use git and LVM in ways that I didn't realize. I see them all of the time and thought that only admins and devs needed them. I had forgotten about inodes because I haven't had problems with those for years. But it's a good idea to know how to fix the problem in case it ever comes about. I think that it happened to me a long time ago but I thought that the distribution was buggy. 😏
Thanks very much Jay, this was very useful advice. I'm particularly interested in the LVM implementation - will definitely be checking out your content for that. 👍
Dont forget that you dont have to change distros if you want a specific desktop environment. More often than not you have plenty of tutorials on how to swap DE without remaking your whole system or learning the ins and outs of another distro. Distro is more of an idea of an amalgamation of what a gnu/linux system should look and work like as the foundation. I might be wrong but the distro selection usually revolves around what package manager it uses... While newcommers are usually just looking into the looks and popularity (which isnt wrong at all). I use arch (btw) because i didnt mind the rolling releases (tbh you can kind of opt out of this ) and the fact that it comes out of the box with basically just the kernel, bootloader and package manager, from there i just pick my "goey" and some apps. You like apt-get more but you wanna use a specific distro that uses something else? Noone is stopping you and its usually not that painful to swap package managers
Whew!! I’m so glad to know I’m not the only Linux noob using man pages. I learned a few things reading the man ls pages the other day. So much more than I realised. Great video. I’m going get that book too.
LVM is not a backup solution but many think so because it can include a “cloud” service. Data exists only where it located. In other words if the data in any one place, like an LVM cloud space there is no backup. Unless there a considered plan to make data replicated in more than one place it can be lost. Usually data should exist in three places, the original, a live backup, and an offline backup (one offsite and dead to changes, think of a place that is kept in a safety deposit box.
I use flash cards for Linux Commands & specialty terminology. I wanted to remember ... to memorize certain things because they were new to me when I first learned them, and I planned on using that info regularly. For me, repetition was the most effective memory tool for Linux.
The TL;DR on inodes is that a directory entry (when you see a file in your file manager, or when running ls, what you're really seeing is a directory entry) points to an inode. An inode then tells Linux where the file's data is on the disk. The number of inodes is (I think) set when you create the filesystem. Each file or directory requires an inode. So no available inodes means you can't create a new file, only allocate more free space to existing files. A nice thing about inodes, and actually something you get with NTFS (and I think it only got put there because MS wanted to have a minimal Posix subsystem in Windows NT so that they could get government contracts) is that you can have multiple directory entries pointing to the same file (hard links). This means you can efficiently create a clone of a directory hierarchy, which I tend to do before doing any destructive power renaming (e.g. applying a naming scheme to a bunch of media files) in case my Python script has an error which messes things up. With NTFS, hard links are hard to make unless you're running cygwin or git-bash.
I've been in Linux System Operations for about a dozen years but have been using Linux since 2.2. This is a well done list. I think the only thing I'd add to really introductory material like this is this: du and df. They might (probably will) report different usages. This can be frustrating when tracking down a "disk full" issue. This, really, is far more common than the exhausted inodes issue. If a file is deleted (but still actually open by a process), df will report that space as still used, while du will not. If this deleted file is very large, the difference could be huge. lsof (list open files) will help you track down the culprit in this case. Often this is caused by a log rotation that does not restart the application doing the logging.
You spent a bit of time talking about LVM and it's snapshot and backup capabilities, but in my experience, LVM has basically been supplanted by zfs in most instances. for pretty much any system that requires redundancy in file systems (multiple disks / some level of RAID) zfs is significantly superior when it comes to filesystem integrity over stuff like ext4 and btrfs, as well as using hardware raid controllers (which often do the wrong thing in a collision). I would suggest folks learning about linux learn about the zfs tools rather than using the old lvm ways of doing things
Unused resources that are never used is wasted. OTOH, used resources that are used at idle are unavailable resources to heavy duty applications. Setting up virtual memory, storage optimization, process prioritization, and some other optimizations are important to serious system administrators for minimizing online response times and maximizing data processing throughput. Using 'git' for production control was the most useful bit of information provided here, but only for newbie to IT systems. This video is really for beginners and is a disservice to anyone planning on a corporate IT career.
Great video Jay, as always! I have never really understood the fixation some Linux distro reviewers have with looking at how much RAM the system is using after first boot, or what it's using during normal operations. I'm like, what is this, 1998?
I agree about not trying to remember commands you don't frequently use. As long as you can remember a search term or part of the actual command your trying to utilize then you can look it up online or in the man pages, etc.
I also want to add. Notion has been super useful for creating my own cheat sheets. I basically extract all the useful stuff from the man page for the command, and than embellish that with stuff I’ve learned elsewhere.
@@PoeLemic it’s an app for taking notes. It basically uses an abstracted form of markdown language. You just type backslash followed by what ever your looking to add (ie table, bullet, heading, url, page).
Personally, I would prefer fewer distributions and better built (visual consistency and more controlled packaging) than the current situation. MacOS is an example of something well finished in every detail, although I do not like some things, the first thing is enjoyed and thanks much more.
Couple of handy analogies for gamer types: think of Linux like modding a game, example Skyrim. Linux is your Skyrim and the various bits you add are the mods. Some are content like a new merchant or gear (apps, package manager, games, etc) Others are basic frameworks or dependencies, like XP32 for skeletons and ragdolls. As for the I-nodes that's like inventory systems, everything has weight (kb, mb, gb) while the nodes are your inventory slots, doesn't matter if your carry capacity is 10,000kg if you're out of inventory slots. Yes I know Skyrim doesn't have limited inventory slots but it is quite crash happy if you collect too many items in a single map location, so the concept is close enough.
Thanks so much for your Linux Instructional Videos: When I first jumped into Linux 15 years ago, as an alternative to Windows, I just wanted to be a user ... not a script writer, analyst, or administrator. I soon found out that to be a Linux User, is to wear all of those hats. The ability to self-educate was difficult for me as the availability of quality instructional material was difficult to find ... at least at first. I do have a friend who is an experienced Linux Administrator and that has helped over the years ... especially with the catastrophes that can happen. I am glad I found your channel ... it's been a good source of quality information. I still have a long journey ahead. Thanks once again.
Yes, you are not the only one. I'm moving away from WIndows, because I think LInux is more the future. So, I'm trying to educate myself too. And, it feels like a long road too.
I've seen in practice that using LVM in a cloud environment is not the best solution. LVM carries the inherent risk of data inconsistency, especially during restoration. For example, we had a case involving 14 hard drives. The restoration process was complicated due to issues in correctly mapping the drives. Consider using cloud provider’s native snapshot and backup tools instead. These tools are designed to handle such complexities and provide seamless volume management and restore capabilities.
i agree with Shawn Lewis below after hearing what you said about commands. I've always felt exactly as you do, but didn't think about this idea of certification tests demanding knowledge of commands mostly likely soon to be forgotten post exam. I totally agree that we have documentation at hand, and quickly on the Net, for all Linux commands. And the one's that we use often are the ones we naturally memorize.
Memory from the cache can be provided to any application which needs it. So basically we should have free memory more, instead of Cache memory as cache memory is not that important. If we have cache memory more, we can either reboot the system to increase the memory and eliminate it from cache, or we can use a command -> [echo 3 > proc/sys/vm/drop_caches] Correct me, if I'm wrong 👍🏻👍🏻
Cool thing about lvm, sounds like you were suggesting you can just span your volume across drives. You csn, but people often consider that unwise. What you can do that's cool though is move your data while the server is online. Add new drive to the old one as 'free blocks", then online move the old drive's blocks to the new drive. Then you remove the old drive (easy since it's empty, block-wise) and then expand the partition to use the rest of the new drive's free blocks. Doesn't play nice with btrfs because what does?
This was another great video! Interesting things you'd learned, practical uses for familiar tools, and an honest look at how much you need to "know" to run a server. Since 1994, the `apropos` command has been a stalwart friend!
So true about certifications. I mean, exams in general in education. They expect you to memorise things as if you couldn't look it up with some research, even before the internet, you could just go to the library.
Server CPU can be low if it's waiting for you - like my nextcloud on my raspberry pi ;) But you are right and this was a major driver in virtualization and later containerization - use the resources to the max with minimal overhead and bottlenecks. Yes, backups are only really in existence if you tested them and retest on a schedule!
I think that the CPU usage is widely variable. I manage web servers and email servers for customers these days, so unless there's a lot of activity, CPU usage is very low. But I used to deal with monitoring servers for ISPs, and high loads were common. When pulling data from thousands of devices on a regular basis, the servers were kept very busy.
Git is great for everyone - whether youre writing documents, anything from memos, a PhD thesis or novels to hardcore software projects like the Kernel, less formal code projects like data analysis/data science projects or sysadmin scripts. If you write anything in your job, it's worth learning git. Just learn to write mostly text based (like .txt, Markdown, LaTeX, code files) rather than flooding your repo with large binaries like Word docs
Thank you for the content. But I want to ask you about that stained glass light in the background - I dabble in stained glass and wonder where you sourced this lamp. I like the glass/wood mix and the overall design. I found your video because I'm thinking of moving to Linux. Best wishes from Ireland. Yesterday we had a whole day without rain......
I’m getting there with the Linux commands. I think my biggest hurdle right now is learning how to effectively use pipes. Also I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of things like grep and awk.
I’m a Windows user who used Linux infrequently and is very rusty. I was researching curl and I saw this complex example in Stack Overflow using Lynx, SED and Awk and instead of installing Windows versions decided to install Mint on an old laptop to apply this example I found (which had typos). I was gratified to connect to the internet and then change to the command line with ct-alt-F1 still connected to the internet to play with curl. I do remember running Redhat 2.4 which ran beautifully with sound and I then ran a distro upgrade and my anguish when the upgrade broke the sound driver. I was using a weird-ass motherboard sound chip and I ended up buying a common sound card just to run with Linux. SoundBlaster from memory. The mobo sound chip was Aureal and the company went out of business so the support had stopped. Follow-up: Creative Labs (maker of SoundBlaster) had sued Aureal over patent infringements (multiple lawsuits) and Aureal won but the legal costs bankrupted the company and Creative Labs acquired the IP at the bankruptcy hearings and Redhat withdrawing the drivers would have been the nail in the coffin for Aureal products. Sucky yes, it really is a dog eat dog world.
If I can remember a few letters of a command I once used, sometimes I'll drag .bash_history file into a text editor so I can use the search function. If you use a shell other than bash, the file name will be different. Although the Up-arrow will eventually get you to that past command, sometimes I used it two or three years ago. That can mean a lot of clicks.. Olden days .bash_history would get truncated to save resources, but on desktop systems the file can stay alive for years.
And LVM can do raid , check the doc on how and what kinds of raid . A great way to learn Linux is to read the man pages , as many as you can stand . LVM has great man pages . Also name LVM name conflicts with LLVM which is Low Level Virtual Machine , so some distros are naming LVM , LVM2 now which stands for version 2 but also gives it more of it's own name , since LVM conflicts with Level Virtual Machine.
I use the ZFS filesystem as root filesystem with native encryption on /home and direct boot from UEFI (no grub) with the Gentoo distribution. ZFS has some cool features like deduplication, which is very hardware intensive, and snapshots like described in this video on LVM. Gentoo allows me to not use systemd (which I hate), compiles the code specifically for my CPU model, is a cutting-edge rolling release, and has very good tools for compiling/upgrading the kernel. I am giving this as possible alternatives, but not as advice. Use whatever works best for you.
I've just started dabbling into Linux, so far I've tried Debian, Lubuntu and Mint. So far I like Mint the best. What started me down this path was my brother in law gave me 2 old laptops to mess around with, knowing my affinity for working with old computers, but there were 2 issues out of the gate: first one was that he didn't know the current Windows passwords for either them, and the second one was that even if he did, they were both running Windows 8, 'nuff said. I think they would have supported at least 10, and one of them, maybe even 11, but why would I shell out the money for licensed copies of Windows on computers that aren't my "daily drivers"? That said, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and give Linux a shot with old hardware and nothing to lose, much like I did with DOS and Windows 3.1 back in the 90's when I first started building computers, and/or messing around with old systems that were headed for the trash anyway
I had a terrible weekend trying to fix an error related to disk. And yes it was inodes. You learn about that really fast if the main website is down...
4:24 you could argue that the purpose of a server is not doing work but providing the possibility that work could be done if it is demanded. So even an idling service provides the service of the possibility and so is not without purpose.
nr 7. unfortunately there is not always easy to have a backup distro at hand. in many environments there are other constraints than the distro itself and the app running on it: availability of official/verified images in public clouds, your security agent may only support a limited number of distros, etc. some distros, even if supported by your apps get support last of all (debian :) in some cases you just have to go wherever the big players are going.
I use Manjaro and Linux Mint on my main PC, Fedora on my laptop for work, Ubuntu on my x86-tablet, Tuxedo OS on my private laptop and Proxmox, OpenSUSE, Debian and Arch on my Servers.
Man I’m feeling this right now. Bought a Dell Micro 7000 to run my plex/arr set up and it’s sitting at 2% even under “heavy” use. Could have just used the old i5 I had lying around.
I started with Slackware at the start of 1996. It came on a cover CD, before the age of bootable CDs, with just enough of a README to tell you how to burn root and boot floppies. And the internet was a 2 mile walk away at the uni campus. I read about ls somewhere, cd I knew from dos. Escaping from vim took me a while. First time it was a case of power-cycle the machine. Second time I tried pressing every key combo I could think of and discovered ctrl-z then when the shell refused to exit due to running jobs, I discovered jobs, jobs -l, guessed kill from reading the console text when shutting down then machine, eventually found I could kill vi with kill -9. About a week in I finally learned how to delete a file. Getting X running meant faffing about with a text config file and knowing things like horizontal scan rates and stuff. And, of course, there was hardly any help on the internet (which was, as mentioned, a two-mile walk away). It's amazing to think that one of the maths/physics computer labs there had about 40 X terminals connected to a single 2-core, 2-socket UltraSparc machine with less power than a cheap modern laptop. By 1998 I was far more comfortable with Linux and for a couple of years it was my only OS. I spent some of my 20MB disk quota on that UltraSparc to have WindowMaker (a NextStep-style window manager) running my desktop (the alternative was CDE). KDE v1 had just come out. The list of things I wish I knew back then is endless.
number 2: I ran a linux server on a vm for the company I work for. It was always at 100% cpu usage even though it was literally never doing anything. In my case, this just had to do with how the vm was reporting usage to the hypervisor, which is fine and I understand that. I could have allocated 1000 cores to it and it would have reported 100% usage. Shrugging it off is wrong though. The vm or server should be sized to the workload and not waste any extra resources. IF it legitimately needs those resources, then by all means allocate them and explain to the client that they are required for fast workflows. But losses and inaccuracies can occur. You have to stay cognizant of that fact.
Yes please. I would like to see more of '10 Things I wish I Knew about Linux'! For example on a sideway, different level of technologies through your career. What you met what you knew and what new technologies surprized you? Thank you for your educational videos.
Yeah, I said same thing -- rather than random stuff; he should organize it by career-period or grouping-ideas to topics (e.g., disk management or server installation), etc.
I always thought that KDE used about the same amount of RAM as windows with just a browser open. Maybe thats actually not the case? When I was doing my electrical engineering course (seems a lifetime ago). One teacher in particular had not issue with us using our text books during exams. As he put it, you're always going to have access to information in the workplace. Its knowing where to look and interpreting is the test.
@MichaelDustter When you first start it up, maybe. I'm running Fedora ATM and with only a browser with a couple of tabs, it's 4.6GB. Similar to what windows would use. Even in TOP it says about the same.
Oracle "Unbreakable Linux" was the choice of most of my Centos clients. Red Hat screwed a lot of people by depreciating Centos. I don't really trust Oracle but they will be around for awhile. Like IBM supporting SUSE, and IBM pays for Linux development. (IBM and NCR use SUSE in their POS and ATMs.)
I agree on not memorizing all the commands, you will memorize what you use often the rest just go in your cheat sheet/book. Decades ago I took to my philosophy that a smart person doesn't have to know everything but know where to find the information they need. That was years before the internet existed and why I have a boatload of books. But I also believe a good administrator has a familiarity with the commands that are available to use when needed. Otherwise everything is a nail when all you have is a hammer.
Honestly when I first started using Linux, what kept drawing me in when I wanted to give up was 1. Most of the time, especially on modern hardware, Linux was faster, and that was with the supposed resource heavy GNOME desktop of Ubuntu 18.04 at the time. 2. Was the fact that there was a bunch of options, so if I got tired of Ubuntu, I could try a different OS, and I love as much customization as possible. I understand the necessity for a universal UI, but the fact that I can't even move the taskbar to the left side of my screen anymore in Windows, that's too restrictive in my opinion, and with the gap for gaming getting smaller, I don't have as much of a reason to go back to Windows anymore.
Why LVM? Why not ZFS? Anyway another great video. Big fan of your videos. Because of you I don't hate Linux. Infact I have one Rocky Linux workstation to run my massively expensive properitory software.
Thank you for the effort put into this video. I would try to minimize the redundant sentences however. For instance the section anout inodes really could have been explained in a much more direct fashion.
The number one thing I would tell people who are new to Linux: don't let *anyone*, no matter how experienced they are, tell you that there is one "right way" to do something. Whether you choose floating windows or a tiling window manager, desktop or terminal window, "beginner" distro like Mint or compile your system from the ground up with Gentoo - doesn't matter. What works for you and what you like is what you should go with. Period. Yes, Linux people will have (usually well meaning) opinions about tools and OSes you should check out. Take their advice if you want to, but don't feel obligated to do *anything* because it's your computer. You're the one who will be daily driving it, so do with it what *you* want; not what the Linux Community thinks is right.
Could'nt agree with you more Jay about Cert exams. They should focus more on teaching you to be more "Resourceful". A much more important skill to have then a great memory. Your channel is fantasic!
I have a "dirty rotten cheats" folder with screenshots and spreadsheets of handy new and/or otherwise forgettable commands. I don't do a lot in the terminal unless I'm going to do a fresh install - at which point I go a little crazy, starting with new ideas and >>>>> all the way to weird ideas and experiments regarding hardening and security that may irretrievably crash me and whatnot.
I have a shell script that displays a text file in the terminal. It's my personal help system. Plus I also keep a lot of notes whenever I perform tasks in the OS. Like say when I compile some software I create a text file with notes about how I built it. I can always refer to those notes when I want to do that task again.
2024 - having an alternative distribution: Debian (Kali) got hacked. Someone installed a back door. Had been going on for a long while in development. They’re STILL trying to reverse engineer it and figure out. Basically, open ports…
For Webservers you actually want your server to be closer to 0% as this means requests get served faster. For something like a job queue consumer, sure, higher CPU is better.
The last thing I want is an operating system where using it is called a "career". It should just work without hassles. Similarly, when I buy a computer I don't want to have to get out a soldering iron to assemble it.
Aliases are great, but that’s not designed for memorizing things . aliases are for simplifying commands and creating short cuts . I have several videos that cover aliases.
I was kinda forced to Linux by Windows. When I got interested in Linux I dual-booted Linux Mint 18 with Win7. Then the Win7 was stuck into an eternal loop of updating-update failed-reboot-updating-update failed. Then I thought really hard what a nuisance would it be to reinstall Windows and I chose to stay in Linux instead.There were a couple of games I couldn't play anymore, but nothing important, really. And by the way, I never had a problem with Linux Mint. I hope this will keep up, so that I won't need a backup distro. I seems quite likely to be the case.
